America’s Slide into Tyranny Is No Longer Hypothetical
Browsing: Opinions
Recently the Legal Defense Fund (LDF) filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) challenging the U.S. Department of Education’s attempts to prohibit and chill lawful efforts to ensure that Black students are afforded equal educational opportunities. The Education Department issued a “Dear Colleague” Letter on Feb. 14, followed by a “Frequently Asked Questions” document on Feb. 28 and a certification requirement on April 3 — all of which include factual inaccuracies and misinterpretations of civil rights laws and threaten the termination of critical public education funds. The defendants named in the suit are the U.S. Department of Education, U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon and Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Craig Trainor.
Last week, the Trump administration granted nearly 70 coal-fired power plants a two-year exemption from the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards. The move allows them to emit increased levels of hazardous pollutants like mercury, arsenic, and lead.
No disgraceful act of the Trump administration is more dangerous than its denial of due process of law, judicial decisions, and unquestionable facts in the deportation to El Salvador of Kilmar Abrego Garcia. Both Trump’s justice department and the El Salvador government of Nayib Bukele are refusing to return Abrego Garcia to the US for a hearing despite admitting that he was mistakenly deported and has not broken any law.
One need not be an expert in international trade to see that Trumps tariff taxing formula is foolish. Equations are logical expressions that model how variables relate to one another like Einstein’s e = mc2. They are a product of rational thought based on observation and their validity is confirmed by fact and evidence.
My daughter is in her final two weeks of undergraduate studies at Florida State University, where a shooter, later identified as FSU student Phoenix Ikner, opened fire. As I write, still the day of the shooting, two people have died and six others are injured. The six likely includes Ikner, who refused to comply with police commands and was shot and hospitalized but as of this writing is not in critical condition.
Despite much lofty rhetoric portraying the United States as a democracy (in which the people rule), this nation, in fact, has often resembled a plutocracy (in which the wealthy rule).
The New “Great Dying” Deserves Our Attention and Action
From Gulf of America to mass expulsion of “illegals” (people of color) to continuing genocidal complicity in Gaza to whatever the daily news brings us…welcome to Trump America! Welcome to the small-minded, white nation so many long for, free once again from those large, inconvenient values – e.g., the Declaration of Independence – that keep disrupting the way things are supposed to be.
At home, on the other hand, the Trump administration liquidated the voting board of the United States Institute of Peace last month, a prelude to destroying its operation in a subsequent invasion by DOGE crusaders who were accompanied by armed police to protect Musk’s minions from unarmed fellow citizens at work. With USIP’s board eradicated and its staff terminated, the Secretary of Defense and Secretary of State signed papers commandeering USIP’s assets, then ordering that its home—across Constitution Avenue from the Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall—be reassigned to the General Service Administrative for unspecified alternative purposes.